


out of the desert

by coastalredwoods



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Discussion of Genocide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 16:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10790127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coastalredwoods/pseuds/coastalredwoods
Summary: A conversation between two children of the desert.





	out of the desert

**Author's Note:**

> For the friend who wanted something about Bodhi and Luke.

The party’s still going when Bodhi sneaks out. He can hear the murmur of voices and clink of glass against glass from his perch on the edge of the pyramid. It’s comforting, almost. If he tries, he can almost hear Jyn’s barking laugh and Chirrut's comforting Jedhai drawl. Telling a tall tale, probably. He was always famous for that, even when Bodhi was a child. He once said he stole pearls from a krayt dragon and gave them to Baze as an engagement present. Baze had only snorted and said that dragons didn’t hoard imitation pearls, anyway.

 

There’s an ache in his throat and a burning in his eyes. He can still remember how his mother laughed at that one, and the little smile his father had tried and failed to hide. Now all he can think is that his parents’ graves burned with the rest of Jedha, and that he’ll never light candles on their headstones again.

 

He runs a hand over the faint designs carved into the stone. Animals with twisting limbs, spiky plants, and the shadows of lettering he’s never seen before. Another people forgotten by the galaxy, just like his.

 

What is he, if he can’t even give his due to the dead?

 

“Excuse me.” The voice nearly makes him jump out of his skin. “Can I sit here?”

 

There in the gloom is Luke Skywalker, hero of Yavin and actual, _literal_ Jedi. Bodhi stares.

 

“I mean,” Luke says, with a small, embarrassed laugh, “If you want to be alone, I underst–“ 

 

“ _No_ ,” Bodhi says. His cheeks heat. “I mean, no, go ahead, sit.”

 

“You’re sure?” He has a really nice smile. _Oh no_ , Bodhi thinks dismally. _Oh shit._ “I can–“

 

“I’m not–I’m not doing anything important.” Bodhi gestures, tries to smile back, because that’s what you do, right? You smile. Smiling is the normal reaction, Bodhi, stars above. “Sit.”

 

Luke sits. He’s still wearing Han Solo’s clothes, and Bodhi tries not to look into that too hard. Chirrut gave Jyn one of his robes to wear for the celebration. This could be the kind of friends they are, and–

 

Pathetic. _Pathetic._ Bodhi thinks of Galen’s hands, his tired eyes. The stoic serenity of his face. He can’t forget the first person he–

 

He cuts off the rest of that thought with an effort, aware of Luke watching him.

 

“Are you–“ he’s out of breath. “Are you–enjoying the party?”

 

Luke laughs and ducks his head. “Um, not really.”

 

“It’s crowded.”

 

“People _died_ ,” Luke blurts out. His hands twist and untwist, worrying at each other. “People _died_ , and we’re down there–“ a bitter laugh, “talking and _drinking._ ”

 

Bodhi feels surprised, and then vaguely guilty. The whiskey Cassian handed him half an hour earlier tastes sour on his tongue. He can still hear Jyn’s laugh–bright, surprising, as sharp as the rest of her–ringing out in the main hangar bay at some stupid joke of he’d told. Baze kissed Chirrut, quick and sweet, and several people had hooted and several others had cheered. Bodhi can’t remember if Luke was there. He should have looked.

 

“I don’t think it’s that,” he says at last. “I think we’re just glad to be alive.”

 

Luke turns his face away. 

 

“I guess,” he tells his feet. “But I can’t…” He breaks off; the roar of insects in the forest below is suddenly deafening. “My best friend did the run. He–“

 

He can’t finish the sentence. But he doesn’t have to, does he? Everyone knows how that story ends, for people less quick and Force-touched than Skywalker. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Bodhi says. Galen comes unbidden to his mind, and he’s opening his mouth before his brain can tell him it’s a bad idea. “I–I know how that feels.”

 

“Oh,” says Luke, and his young face is suddenly alive with sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Yeah,” Bodhi says. He wants another drink and maybe 48 hours of sleep. Maybe just a blaster to the face, he doesn’t know. He can still feel the ghost of Galen’s rough fingers on his wrist, and that kind look that comprehended everything and judged none of it. “He was. He was a _good man,_ ” because some will say otherwise, down there, “and he saved us.” He swallows hard. “It wasn’t me, it was _him_.”

 

“I think it was both of you,” Luke says. “Doing what you did? That was pretty amazing.”

 

Luke Skywalker, last Jedi in the galaxy, heir to ancient tradition, hero of Yavin IV– _that Luke Skywalker_ –is telling him that he’s _amazing_. 

 

Fuck, maybe he’s hallucinating again. The only problem with that theory is that, historically, his hallucinations have been a lot less enjoyable than attractive demigods telling him how wonderful he is. If his mother materializes out of the darkness with the bullet hole in her head and starts screaming him for getting her killed, _that_ might be more convincing.

 

“Thank you,” he says, aware that the silence has stretched for an uncomfortably long time. He chances a look at Skywalker’s face and catches a soft expression and an adorably shy smile.

 

They sit together without talking for a while longer. Bodhi used to do this with his family and watch the sun set over the western horizon, breathing in the heavy scent of the flowering trees and the dust kicked up by the work of the day. A tired sort of quiet. A sweaty, understanding sort of quiet.

 

It occurs to him that Mon Mothma, lovely in her white robes, would never understand what the children of desolate dustballs do–that sometimes words are insufficient, and darkness holy.

 

He hasn’t seen the Princess Organa for a while, either. The Alderaanians made themselves scarce as soon as it became clear that they were out of danger. By mutual unspoken agreement, nobody’s gone looking for them.

 

“I–“ Jedha dust still in his clothes, under his nails, in his hair. He can smell it, and he isn’t sure if he wants to shower right now or never wash again. “What’s Tatooine like? What’s–“

 

“Dry,” Luke says, and laughs. “Boring. I dreamed of getting away, but then–“ He pauses, purses his lips. “My aunt and uncle. I wonder if sometimes a–a desert spirit heard me and decided to grant my wish in the worst way possible.”

 

“You can’t think of it that way.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Jedha was boring on a _good_ day,” Bodhi says. “And on bad days, things exploded. The first time I saw the stars up close, I cried.”

 

“Because they were beautiful?”

 

“Because they weren’t _broken_.” Jedha, Jedha, holy city, bleeding from her desecrated temples and murdered citizens, an animal the Empire killed by inches. Maybe he hasn’t collapsed yet because the city died for him years ago, with his parents and his aunts and his uncles and–

 

Luke is looking at him, quiet and serious in the twilight. He reaches out and takes Bodhi’s hand. Bodhi’s face goes hot. He blinks rapidly and squeezes Luke’s fingers, not sure if he wants to cry on his shoulder or kiss him.

 

“On Tatooine, we have a festival for the new year,” Luke says. “And at the end, we say a prayer that the new year will bring new beginnings. Does–does Jedha have something like that?”

 

“Yeah,” Bodhi says, remembering flowers in his hair, the taste of spices on his tongue. “We sang songs about new stuff.”

 

“New stuff,” Luke echoes, and laughs. “Yeah, like that. And songs about freedom.”

 

Because Tatooine is a slave world, and even if Luke was never a slave, then he definitely _knew_ slaves or was the _son_ of slaves or–Bodhi feels awful for forgetting.

 

“I’m sorry–I didn’t–“

 

“It’s okay,” Luke says. He smiles in that way again, all unstudied sweetness, and Bodhi’s heart is beating almost too loudly to hear what comes next. “Everything is going to be okay, I’m sure of it.”

 

He leans forward and kisses Bodhi. His lips are dry and gentle and taste of distant deserts.

 

“Oh,” Bodhi says, dizzily. He touches his lips. He feels like a girl in a silly holodrama, like someone who belongs in a love story instead of a warzone, like all the terrible moments in his life never happened. “That’s.”

 

“Good?” Luke asks, frowning a little.

 

“Yeah.”

 

They grin at each other. In the base below, there comes the sound of shattering glass and a burst of drunken cheering. Neither of them pay any attention.

 

“To new beginnings,” Bodhi says, half a question. Luke laughs.

 

“To new beginnings,” he agrees, and kisses Bodhi again.


End file.
